Environmental Pollution by Mill Tailings and Control Methods

Abstract

Owing to the increasing stress on ecological and envir-onmental protection, disposal of tailings from milling operations is becoming more serious with the increasing exploration for poorer grade ore deposits. In most of the cases the major fraction of the ore treated eventually becomes tailings. Due to the production of vast quantities of highly visible waste, much of the legislation is dir-ected towards it, and hence there is need for the rigid control of the tailings disposal. Besides the visual effects on the land - scape of tailings disposal , the major ecological effect is water pollution , due to the discharge of water contaminated with solids, reagents, heavy metals , sulphur compounds, etc. The paper deals with the impact of mill - tailings and mill effluents on environment. Various methods of disposal of tailings to minimise their adverse effects, are examined, Some possibilities including the treatment of tailings, re-cycling of tailing water, & the design and construction of tailings dam have been disscussed.